March 2019

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November 2018

November 27, 2018

It didn’t take long to find a candidate for my list of Best Wines of the Year – bingo! One popped into my purview in early February.

Served with a stunning sausage, clam and kale stew made from scratch by Carol, the 2005 Clos St. Jean, La Combe des Fous lit up a collective smile at the table.

This was a fabulous wine, generous of all the flavors and nuances expected in a 13-year-old Chateauneuf-du-Pape from a great, if slightly hot, vintage, filling one’s mouth with sweet fruit (Grenache), nuanced by the presence of Vaccarèse.

Vaccarèse, also called Brun Argenté, is only grown by a few producers in Chateauneuf-du-Pape; in total, less than a-tenth-of-a-percent of all the vines planted in Chateauneuf-du-Pape are Vaccarèse.

I felt that this particular bottle was one of the top expressions of CDP I’ve had in the last three years. Absolutely seductive, charming and disarming. I was sad to finish the bottle.

For the record, by the producer’s own standards, Grenache bottled under the St. Jean label must be not less than 50-years-old; fruit from younger vines is processed and sold to negociants.

Easily a 99 point wine.

2014 Bergstrom Shea Vineyard.jpg

I have been drinking various Willamette Valley producers’ examples of Shea Vineyard Pinot Noir (owned by Dick Shea, in the Yamhill-Carlton AVA) for 25 years… but have never, not once, thought of this as a top-favorite vineyard site for fruit that wows me.

Over all these years, I have found that Shea Vineyard produces muddied, chewy, fruit and in the hands of most winemakers, who buy a block of grapes from this historic vineyard, the result for me has never been memorable.

But I have kept on buying Shea Vineyard Pinot Noir from a number of area producers in the hopes of eventually finding a great Shea Vineyard wine.

(In many respects, I have resembled Charlie Brown playing football with Lucy… just when I thought I might have success finding a great example of wine from this vineyard site… the “ball” has been pulled away from me and I am angled to fall on my face, exasperated by the challenge of never achieving my goal.)

But on a night in May, I discovered THE SINGLE BEST EXAMPLE OF SHEA VINEYARD WINE THAT I HAVE EVER HAD. Even better than Dick Shea’s variations with his own vineyard fruit.

The wine was – ta da!– the 2014 Bergstrom Shea Vineyard Pinot Noir.

Holy Mother of Nature, this is a wondrous version of Shea Vineyard fruit, filled with the scent and taste of bright, youthful berries of all hues and colors; the wine exhibits crisp acidity, joyous juice, and ethereal balance. There is so much wine in this wine – it compels the drinker to go back quickly for another sip.

The wine was so good that I resolved myself to open another bottle from the cellar the next night for a major dinner party we hosted in our home.

Thank you JoshBergstrom, one of Oregon’s GREAT winemakers! You are a talented magician with Shea Vineyard Pinot Noir – having mastered the illusion, turning this otherwise predictable fruit into one of Napaman’s Best Wines of the Year!

Bravo and congratulations!

98 points.

2005 Domaine Drouhin, cuvee Laurene

Within weeks, another stellar Willamette Valley Pinot Noir jumped out of the glass, providing hours of unbridled table romance. How do I love thee, cuvee Laurene? Passionately, would be the answer, and with regret that this was my only bottle in the cellar, brought to our home as a hostess gift in March of this year.

I often like seven, or eight years of age on my Willamette Valley Pinots and can’t recall having had a 13-year-old Pinot Noir with such an expression of vigor, grace, and balance. Oodles of stuffing left in this plummy, richly textured, wine.

I visited Robert Drouhin, then patriarch of the noble Burgundy house, in Beaune, France, back in the late 1970s/early 1980s, long before he got wind of how great the climate and soil in Oregon would be for Pinot Noir; he was gracious, accommodating, thoughtful and welcomed my winery visit with gusto. I can say this: he never thought that I would be knighting one of his family’s Oregon Pinot Noirs as A Top Wine of The Year40 years later. And, by the way, neither did I.

97 points.

2007 Lokoya Cabernet, Howell Mountain

A truly seductive wine, capable of leaping tall buildings at a single bound.

Oh, boy, did I fall hard for this sensual wine!

My wife, Carol, and I were invited to a special, private dinner in April 2017 at Cardinale winery (a sibling winery in the Jackson Family Wines portfolio) where they poured aged, library Lokoya Cabernets of insane pedigree.

For me, the 2007 Lokoya, Howell Mountain Cabernet (100 per cent Howell Mountain Cabernet) was the richest, most satisfying of the wines served. The wine caused my heart to skip a beat. It was GORGEOUS.

This unctuous wine was like a runway model, a singular beauty in every dimension in which elements are judged; for wine, this includes weight on the palate, class, color, texture, attack, finish, allure, nuance and the ability to leave the drinker speechless.

I bought several library bottles that night at a price I prefer not to disclose, for fear of being ridiculed for my spendthriftiness.

In June of this year, I brought the bottle to Bouchon to share with friends at dinner; we have had some of our best Napa Valley meals in 2018 at Bouchon. If you haven’t dined here recently, you must try it – delicious food, impeccable service and a well curated wine list.

They also have a stunning By-the-Glass program using Coravin, offering extremely rare wines. We always leave Bouchon happy.

But, I digress….

The 2007 Lokoya, Howell Mountain Cabernet was made by Chris Carpenter, one of my favorite local winemakers, who has been on the Lokoya team since 2000.

Chris Carpenter, winemaker

Chris Carpenter is Napa Valley’s Gian Lorenzo Bernini of winemaking.

When you see a Bernini marble sculpture, in Rome, like Apollo and Daphne (below), you experience a jaw-dropping, forehead-slapping moment, which is exactly what happens when you taste one of Chris’ pedigreed wines.

A Bernini sculpture makes you swoon; you swear the marble figures are alive. Despite being hard marble, the statue from which it is made is downright sensual, arousing, enlivening all your senses.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s sculpture of Apollo and Daphne, in the collection of the Galleria Borghese, in Rome.

In many ways, Chris’ wines are similarly sensual, totally arousing.

I LOVE his La Jota wines, his Cardinale wines, his Mt. Brave wines. And at the top of this list, I place his Lokoya mountain-fruit Cabernets. You can’t put more wine in a wine, more yum, more silkiness, more sensual pleasure, in a glass. Period.

We enjoyed the 2007 Lokoya with Bouchon’s steak frites, a marriage made in heaven. Possible proof that God is a chef, or possibly a sommelier. Not sure about this… I’ll get back to you.

100 points.

PS:One more thing: Just to show how humble and unassuming Chris Carpenter is; this talented winemaker chooses to work as a bartender at Rutherford Grill Friday nights when he is in the valley! Yes, that’s right, you can head over to the Rutherford Grill (duh – in Rutherford!) and ask Chris to make you an exotic cocktail, or sluice you a beer on tap. Either way, you can tell folks back home that you met one of the great winemakers of Napa Valley while you were here.

I can’t help but share two additional images of a Bernini sculpture; below is one of his crowning achievements, called The Rape of Proserpina, also in the Galleria Borghese.

Note the close-up of the hand on Proserpina’s hindquarter – and remind yourself that this is carved from hard, Carrara marble! Even so, it looks like a real hand touching real skin!

Two things to put on your Bucket List:

Taste Chris Carpenter’s Lokoya Cabernets

Head to Rome and visit the Galleria Borghese

2007 Charter Oak Petite Sirah

Here’s a curious fact about this wine – I helped make it! And it’s better now than at any time I’ve tasted it in the last 11 years!

Short story: For nearly a decade, I was a partner with my good friend, Rob Fanucci, in a winery started by his grandfather, Charter Oak, in St. Helena.

We made several cuvees, including an award-winning, old-vine Zinfandel with fruit from 135-year-old vines from Sonoma’s Monte Rosso vineyard. As well, we made a killer Petite Sirah with fruit, which we hand-picked ourselves in St. Helena.

Rob’s son, David, a budding winemaker at the time, helped make the two sensational 2007 wines that we bottled.

David insisted that we submit our 2007 Charter Oak Monte Rosso Vineyard Zinfandel into a world-wide wine competition held in San Francisco; the judges were professional sommeliers from across the US and at the end of a week of bracketed, blind tastings, out of something like 5,000 wines, our 2007 Charter Oak Monte Rosso Vineyard Zinfandel was chosen the TOP wine of all reds submitted into competition! We were ecstatic.

Buoyed with this notoriety, I offered 50 cases of the 2007 Zinfandel and our equally thrilling, 2007 Charter Oak Petite Sirah to the LCBO in Ontario, Canada, where I had many friends always clamoring for our wines.

This huge, state-run, wine retailer took a pallet of each SKU. Our importer then was Franco Prevedello, a close friend who is often referred to as The Godfather of Italian Restaurants in Toronto, since he introduced that city to fine Italian cuisine and ultimately brought a dozen restaurants into existence.

In June of this year, I visited Toronto. At dinner in Franco’s home, much to my surprise, he served the 2007 Charter Oak Petite Sirah with a sensational, slow-cooked, barbequed brisket, which he’d brought home from his restaurant, Carbon Bar. Franco had found one last, remaining bottle of our wine in his cellar and had been saving it for my visit. (Even I don’t have any of this long-gone vintage.)

I was stunned by the purity of this wine, the focus, the balance and the elegance.

I will never forget what the LCBO wine-buyer had said to me upon tasting a sample I sent for the board’s consideration:

“This is the best California Petite Sirah I have ever tasted.”

And trust me, this buyer had tasted a lot, given that the LCBO is the largest single wine and spirits retailer in the world.

Thank you, Franco, for saving this wine for me to experience one more time; thank you Rob and David for letting me be your winery partner; the care and concern – and thrills -- we packed into this wine still show strong 11 years later – great work!

98 points.

2007 Le Vieux Donjon

Loyal readers of napaman.com may remember my infatuation with the Chateauneuf-du-Pape wine Le Vieux Donjon; I had thirteen perfect bottles back about ten years ago…. Here’s a link to the original story:

Well, Le Vieux Donjon continues to make me feel complete, happy, joyful and contented with life. Not bad mojo from a glass of grape juice!

In August, I brought a bottle of 2007 Vieux Donjon to enjoy at Goose & Gander, my favorite hamburger hangout in Napa Valley. No one else makes a better burger in the Valley and what goes better with a perfectly served burger than a glass of Grenache?

This wine has grown from a Parker 96-pointer to a 99+ point wine, in his own estimation.

Ethereal flavors, ripe red fruits, stunning clarity, and a gorgeous finish brought smiles to my face. You know you have a perfect wine when it elicits a similar smile to the 100-point burger at G&G!